THE ROMANIAN IDIOM UN PURICE ÎN URECHE (“A FLEA IN THE EAR”): A TRANSLATION FROM FRENCH OR A CASE OF LINGUISTIC POLYGENESIS?

Abstract

The aim of this article is to prove, based on some textual occurrences from the (older) press, that the set phrase (a avea) un purice în ureche [to have a flea in the ear] once circulated in Romanian, at least for a while, deserving, as such, to be recorded in a future edition of the thesaurus dictionary of our language (DLR- Romanian acronym). At the same time, by trying to determine the origin of this expression, we demonstrate that it entered the Romanian language mainly from French, via translations. Furthermore, it may be assumed that the existence of similar idioms (as internal creations) in the popular Romanian language contributed (on the basis of some “phraseological universals”) to the easy adoption of the French idiom (avoir/mettre) la puce à l’oreille.